Of Pointe Shoes and Motorcycles
by CleverAlibi
Summary: Megan never thought the cutie she was flirting with would let her in. Turns out, she needed a few feminine products to win his heart. OneShot. Rated for some words.


**Well, as previously stated, this is my first OneShot. I wrote it on a whim when I woke up this morning, and between wanting to apologize (AGAIN!) to my loyal readers, and just wanting to put it away before I got too tangled up in it...here it is! Now. To clear up some inevitable confusion:**

**This is a kind of a missing chapter to my first story, 'They Could Not Stop for Death', a full-length SPN AU sisfic, with the exception that the 'sis' in question does not make much of an appearance, and both Sam and John are out and about during the time of the story. Really, the only relation to the other story is that Dean has a younger sister named Lily, so you definitely don't need to read the other story to make sense of this one.**

**That said, if you don't like the sisfic, give this a chance! It's a little different than the average, I think, if only because she only has about a half second appearance. **

**For everyone else (especially my loyal readers...thanks for your patience, guys!), let me know what you think! This is my first in this style, and was written on a whim, so I am most definitely open to criticism.**

**Make what you will of the title.**

**Dean's not mine, and it's sad.**

**Much love,**

**CA**

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**"Megan."

It's the middle of the day when he calls me. I've had his number for less than a week, and his voice sounds funny on the other end of the line.

It takes me a full minute to realize why: there's real emotion there.

Go figure.

**xxxxx**

We'd agreed the first night, just the two of us and our friend Jack, that we both wanted nothing more than a fun fling. I knew from the start he was too young—even without him waiting for me to buy the drinks—but the way he walked in like he owned the place, you never would have guessed it. He had a presence like I'd never seen before, except maybe in movies, and even then, you could tell they were acting. It was a strange sort of confidence that came from the strength of knowing you have precious ones who depend on you. I knew this intrinsically then, but I didn't know yet how to put words to it.

He sat down at the bar, and he looked straight at me, and the first thing he said was, "I don't fool you for a second, do I?"

I looked him over, once up and down, and canted my head to one side. "Maybe for a second," I said. He must have known I had no intention of giving him up, or else I don't think he would have said anything at all.

Somehow we ended up talking. In retrospect, it doesn't surprise me. He could have charmed 'the white off rice', as my mother used to say (I had no doubt he'd have had the same effect on her, were she hear to witness those incredibly deep green eyes). And whether it was me supplying the drinks or something else that kept him there, I'll never know. I do know he had a crazy way of making me talk. Me, normally so closed mouthed (it's easy as the only female bartender in a five mile radius. Guys just walk in and spill—I'll never understand why it's the _girls_ who get the bad rap for being emotional). I ended up telling him about my parents, and how I'd dropped out of school, moved to the city, and taken up a job here. We talked about how I was good at it—not just mixing drinks, but listening and earning tips while I pretended to care. I don't think he ever actually said he was eighteen, but somehow, by the end of the night, I knew it, and I think he knew I knew it.

Sometime around 3:30, an hour after the bar had closed and I'd finished cleaning up, I started asking about him. He lied smoothly, and though I read through it easily enough, I didn't press. I came to find his name was Dean Something, and he was looking for work as a freelance mechanic. Learned the trade from his dad, and the two of them went around fixing up old cars for money.

"Sounds like fun," I'd commented. "A perpetual road trip. Just two guys."

When he said nothing, a smile quirked my lips. "No? What, you got siblings, Dean Smith? You don't seem the type."

The change was instantaneous, and I knew I'd crossed onto sacred ground. He paid for his drinks (well, some of them) and left. Not angry, I don't think, just…tense. Like the sibling(s?) he didn't have had suddenly screamed through the darkness for him.

He came back the next night, though I wasn't expecting it, and we talked again. I got a little out of him, this time. Movies he liked, and music, too. I got the sense that he was smart, and more than savvy, just plain smart, but he didn't know it. He was the kind of guy who seemed like an asshole til you got to know him—then he was still an asshole, but a loveable asshole. I think, once or twice, I even got him to laugh.

But when it came to his phantom siblings, he remained tight-lipped as ever. It was like he thought even speaking a name would expose them (or him or her) to all the dangers of the world, and he knew he couldn't get back into to save them. I found myself wishing I'd had a brother like Dean, even if my life wasn't particularly tragic to begin with.

Anyway, I'd given up hope at ever prying into that corner of his life. Six days after I'd met him, six nights of those long talks, where I swear, he would just sit and drink and gather information. I never knew what he wanted from those chats, or if he wanted anything at all. Hell, maybe he just liked free booze. I never knew if he ever felt anything for me the way I was worried I might start feeling something for him. For once, it seemed, I'd met someone better than myself at being deceivingly distant.

So when I got the call, and he sounded…not quite scared, but close, I knew I'd been given a gift.

"Megan," he says again, as if he'd momentarily forgotten all the other words he'd ever learned.

"Dean? What's up? You know it's like…four in the afternoon, right? We don't open for another three hours—"

"Yeah, I know. Look, I'm sorry, I…I didn't know who else to call, it's…she…I…"

"Dean, dude, calm down. What the hell's wrong with you?" Was that…concern blossoming in my chest? This scrawny teenager—well, okay, he was cute. And charming. And dammit if those green eyes weren't the kind of thing you saw in magazines...but he was still a kid–had ninja'd his way straight through to my heart. Damn.

There was a pause on the other end long enough to warrant checking whether he'd hung up or passed out or something. He hadn't.

"It's Lily," he says finally. "she's my—"

"She's your sister," I finish, so unsurprised, I don't even realize it's a revelation.

"Yeah." And if_ he's_ surprised, he wastes no time showing it. "She…uh…she locked herself in the bathroom, and she won't come out, and I don't know what to do. I mean, I think it's…uh…she…"

I almost laugh, because the scenario is strangely familiar. "How old is she?"

"Thirteen."

"I'm at the bar. Come pick me up."

"I can't leave her—"

"Dude, chill," I say, and this time it's more than a mindless regurgitation normally saved for drunken, overly-handsy bar patrons. This time I meant it. "It'll take twenty minutes, and you will be so much more help to her if you come with me."

**xxxxx**

He's here in five, and before I can ask how many speed limits he broke, he's leaned over to unlock the door and usher me into the car—I'd never seen his car before, I realized. It's an old black behemoth that I can't put a name to—and stammering his thanks and an explanation, though neither is necessary. Me, I can only stare, and try not to laugh, because it's the first time I've ever seen this adult in a kid's body even remotely off his game. It suddenly makes sense to me why he doesn't talk about his sister. His confidence comes, like most people's, from his ability to conceal his weaknesses. He just has an easier time with it, because it's not something he carries with him. It's _her_.

We stop, and even though I tell him I'll be fine by myself, he follows me into around the drug store, straight to the 'Feminine Hygiene' section. I almost laugh at how uncomfortable he looks—for the first time since I've known him, he's acting his age—and tell him to go wait at the register, until I see, despite how he tries to hide it, how closely he watches what I'm doing. Watches with the careful attention to detail of someone who fixes cars (or whatever he really does, because by now, I've figured out that's not it) and has to be acutely aware of what they're doing. He watches until it seems he's forgotten I'm there, he's so absorbed with what I'm doing, watching the brands I pick up, pass over, the types and styles I ponder for thirteen year old girls on their first run-in with mother nature. When I get to the painkiller's section—because Lord knows I was in agony _my_ first time—I watch him watch me, then grab two extra bottles of the same stuff.

By the time we get to the register, he's nearly bouncing with agitation, and I've lost my smile, because I can see how truly worried he is, and it makes me anxious.

"So…you know this is normal, right?" I venture. My suspicions about him not knowing I was there are confirmed when he jumps.

"What? Oh. Yeah. Right."

"So you can calm down."

"Sure."

"And maybe ease off the peddle, because if we die before we get there, we're not gonna be much help to her."

He does—I watch the needle edge from 85 down to 70 mph—but I have a feeling it's less because of my suggestion, and more because my words have triggered two realizations: one, we were driving really fast, and two, I'm coming with him. I'm not sure whether that's what he intended when he called me, but at this point, he's been away too long to take me back, and if nothing else, I'll see where she lives, Dean's little sister, and it'll make her that much more vulnerable. And like I noticed before, if she's exposed, so is he.

There goes that confidence.

I almost want to say, "I won't hurt her," not because it's true, but because he seems to need to hear it as his hands tighten on the wheel, and his lips tighten into a thin, straight line. But I don't, because I know it won't help my case.

So I sit and wonder whether I'll be allowed inside or not.

**xxxxx **

I am. He's made up his mind by the time we arrive there, a dingy apartment complex eighteen blocks south of my bar, and I can tell it wasn't an easy decision by the determined set of his face when he opens my door, and the tone of his voice as he says, "Bathroom's down the hall on the right."

He waits in the main room, and every fiber of his being is screaming at me, _If _anything_ happens…_

Not for the first time, I wonder what he actually does, what actually goes on in his life to make him so fiercely protective of his sister.

I also wonder what he thinks I'll do, and it's a struggle not to turn around and say, "Well, Dean, you've thwarted my secret plan to stab your sister with a tampon. Curses! Foiled again."

**xxxxx**

Not to my surprise, she is no more receptive to me than he was when I first met him when I knock on the door. I'm not shy, never have been, but there's a distinct nervousness as I introduce myself, and I have a feeling it's less teaching a strange girl what she must do about her monthly visitor than the idea that her older brother is less than twenty feet away ready to snap if I mess up. For a second, I imagine myself saying, "No, Lily, that's not how that works...Lily?...Lily? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

But I don't.

"My name's Megan," I say instead, uncertain. Instantly, the protests on the other side of the door cease at the sound of an unfamiliar—female—voice. "I'm a friend of your brother's from…from school."

Silence, and she's more like Dean than I expected. She's waiting for an explanation.

Shit.

"I…your…your brother called me and said—"

"I needed help?" Her tone is dry, flat. She's annoyed with her brother, she's annoyed with me, and she's annoyed that she knows he's right. She's so much like him, I wonder, for a moment, if it's really Dean in there, playing a very, very strange joke.

I know it's not when the voice concedes, "Have you…do you…I mean, have you ever…"

"I have three younger cousins," I interrupt, feeling ahead of the game for the first time since I got out of the car. "All girls, no mother."

A second later, the door opens and snatches the bag out of my hand. I see a begrudging flash of green—equal parts surprising and expected, because by now I realize they are, they must be, the same person—and nothing else. I lean against the wall patiently, and though I say nothing, I know she knows I'm here, just in case. I'm dreading her asking for help—not because I can't handle it, but because little kid or not, she's still the sister of a kid I just met a few weeks ago—but she doesn't. Somehow, I knew she wouldn't.

When she emerges, she looks me full in the eye with a sort of stubborn determination that says she knows she should be embarrassed—probably is embarrassed—but won't show it. She mutters a brief but sincere thank you, and leads the way back to Dean.

They give each other _another_ look, and I can only watch for a second, because even after a second, it feels far too private, almost uncomfortable. But the instantaneous exchange is both tangible and heartbreaking.

Then she goes into the next room, and I hear a TV come on, and Dean nods toward the car, because we both know I need to be at work.

When he drops me off, I get out without hesitation. I'm surprised when he stops me.

"That was my sister," he says after a second. "That was Lily."

Then he's gone, and I'm staring after the car, shining like a black diamond in the receding, tangerine sun. _Impala_. The word comes, unbidden, and leaves just as quickly.

**xxxxx**

I never saw him again after that, but I don't mind. I know his last words were as close to 'thank you' as anyone can ever get from Dean Something.

And I know I'm one of the select few to hear them.

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**Reviews are dope. **


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